Moonlight on My Mind (30 page)

Julianne choked on a sob. “Say it again.”

His lips curved up, mere inches from her own. “The part where you belong with me?”

“The part where you love me.”

He laughed. “I love you, wife.”

She pressed her finger against his lips, determined to commit the act to permanent memory. “Again.”

“I. Love. You.” The rumble of words against her finger sending a skitter of warmth through the whole of her. “I will say it every day, if that is what it takes to keep you here. I can’t do this without you.”

“You don’t have to,” she told him.

And then she pulled him in for a kiss.

Chapter 33

T
hough he’d spent a good deal of time tonight trying to see through it, Patrick’s
affair de coeur
with Julianne’s wrapper was at an end.

The damned thing had to go.

He stood up from the tub, his wife in his arms, water streaming off them both. The towel was now soaked, but he found he did not care. The air in the room was languorous and warm, thanks to the fire blazing in the grate. Neither of them risked being felled by pneumonia as a consequence of what he was about to do.

Because while the next sensible step might have been to cover up her wet body as quickly as possible, he wasn’t feeling entirely sensible at the moment.

He carried her, soaking wet, to the bed and set about peeling the wet, transparent wrapper from her skin. The fabric stymied him at every turn, clinging to her shoulders, sticking to her arms. Slowly, slowly he tugged, until it bunched about her waist and the pale perfection of her breasts tipped into his greedy view.

A word took a claw-hold in his mind.
Mine.
A simple enough sentiment, one that even a fool like himself could understand. And yet, it was so much more complicated than that.

She was finely molded, peaks and valleys tempting a man to chart his own course, a fever dream one wished to never wake from. He leaned in and feathered a kiss down the slope of one breast before running his tongue up the other.

She squirmed beneath him. “I’ve decided I like it when you meander,” she gasped.

“Meandering has its place, certainly.” He lingered over the damp scent of her as his mouth explored her body, moving up to brush his lips against the soft skin on the underside of her jaw. “But I confess, this particular waiting has come close to killing me.” He slipped the robe completely off her and rocked her gently back onto the bed.

He stared down at his wife’s flushed face, then tripped down to her toes and back again. Lord, but she was beautiful. She was pale, smooth perfection, and vivid red curls. The mere curve of her collarbone was eroticism redefined. He ran his hands down the still-damp length of her, pausing over the gentle flare of hip, stroking up the lust-provoking curve of her calf until he found the sweet, secret indentation at the hollow of her knee. He wanted to explore every inch of her, from the high arch of her foot to that lovely mouth that could slice a man in two or take him to heaven, depending on her mood and fate’s whimsy.

He hoped fate was feeling whimsical tonight.

He eased his own body onto the mattress beside her and trailed a finger down her abdomen. His hand brushed the tempting curls waiting there at the juncture of her legs. He found her more than ready to receive him, and his body jerked painfully at the discovery.

“Do you know how often I have dreamed of seeing you like this, naked beneath me?”

She shuddered beneath his touch, and her legs fell open in a silent but unmistakable invitation. “It cannot be that often. We’ve only been married three weeks.”

A chuckle built in his throat. “Oh no, love.” Slowly, slowly, he found the hidden place that made her tremble with pleasure and arch upward into his touch. “You’ve occupied a place in my mind for far longer than the length of our marriage. Almost a year now.”

“So long?” she gasped.

He pressed more firmly, enjoying the way her breathing had accelerated to quick, hard pants with just a touch. “Aye. Ever since that damned waltz. Devilish thing, that. I almost refused you. I knew you were trouble, sure enough, and looking for more. And I was right. When it was through, I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

“I thought you hated me,” she protested, thrashing her head with the pleasure he was determined to coax out of her.

“I
wanted
to hate you.” He slipped a finger inside her, and almost groaned from the contrast of silk and heat. “But I also wanted to tup you. Whenever I thought of you at night, in my lonely bed in Moraig, I imagined you flushed and panting beneath me, eager for whatever I had in mind. And that was after a single dance and a murder accusation. Imagine what I want to do with you now that I’ve had a taste of you.”

J
ulianne wanted to collide with her husband in damp, twisted sheets. She wanted to dive into madness and never come up.

And she wanted to do it now.

Desire snaked through her in a delicious, erotic pulse. His confession loosened some critical tether in her soul, and she pulled him down hard toward her mouth. She licked the space behind his ear almost experimentally. The taste of him—salt and subtle spice and the distinctive tattoo of her own soap—was a heady, forbidden thrill. Next she scraped her teeth across the skin at the base of Patrick’s neck, smiling as the gesture ripped glad laughter from his throat.

She had a feeling she was going to like tupping. Very much, indeed.

“Are you trying to mortally wound me, wife?” He chuckled, and the sound of his amusement was the most intimate thing imaginable.

“I am trying to get you to hurry,” she admitted.

Not that her body objected to the pace of her husband’s ministrations, per se. He was brilliant in his leisure. But the blood hummed in her veins. The argument that had led them here had left behind a thrumming heat demanding something more than the gentle press of her husband’s hand. They’d meandered enough on their way to this startling bit of happiness.

It was time to finish the journey.

“I don’t want to wait,” she told him, ready to beg if it came down to it.

“I’ve no objection to hurrying,” he told her, threading his fingers through her hair and anchoring her tight. “As long as we are hurrying together.”

He captured her lips in a deep kiss as he entered her. She yielded to the sweet torture that began where he joined his body with hers and ended somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

She clung to him, reaching for the release she knew hovered, just out of reach. It was a far different journey now that she understood the fire beneath her skin was merely the prelude to something more portentous. He drove her there, with the feel of his hand at her breast, and the impossibly sweet sound of her name on his lips.

She was in awe of the emotion he’d unleashed in her, in the strength of her love. She let herself go, trusting him, trusting herself. Her body was tutored now, aching for that peak, willing to expend whatever was needed to find it.

“Please,” she begged him.

He obligingly bent his damp head and captured her nipple in his mouth, and that was all it took to hurl her right over the edge. She broke apart in his arms, her eyes blurring with the pleasure-pain of it. The cry that was wrenched from her throat would have sounded feral, but for the sound of his own lashing release.

Her return to sanity was blissfully slow. The room came back into focus in slow measures. First the fire, burning low in the grate. Then the floor, where Patrick’s boots lay tossed about like so much rubbish, and the water soaking the carpet beneath the tub. And finally, her husband, with his unkempt sandy hair and lovely, lean body and smug, smug grin.

Although, surely if anyone ought to be a bit smug, it was she.

She smiled through the remaining fog of pleasure. “Why are you grinning in such a lascivious manner?”

He gathered her back against his chest. One big hand trailed down her arm, raising gooseflesh anew. “You are sweating. I am not sure I realized before tonight that ladies might sweat.”

“I imagine most ladies don’t,” she admitted, knowing she ought to take offense. But how could she object to her state of dishevelment, when she wanted only to indulge in the act again? “Although they probably don’t tup either.”

His chuckle floated, just behind her ear. “More fool they.”

She wanted only to stay here, safe in his sweat-slick arms, the world held at bay by nothing more than a busted latch and a heavy chair. But reality tried to nudge that delicious logic aside. “I suppose I ought to call for another bath.”

“Whatever for?”

“Why, because I am sweating, of course. As you have been so kind to point out.”

He lifted the damp curls off her neck and pressed a kiss against her heated skin. “You might want to wait until I’ve finished with you.” He pressed into her, and she could feel him already stirring to life again against the small of her back.

She closed her eyes and turned herself over to the delicious sweep of longing that once again began to displace good sense. “I suppose I could delay it a bit longer,” she gasped as his mouth once more began its sweet, busy assault on her senses. “Until you’ve finished.”

He laughed against her shoulder, and his chuckle reverberated through her. “I will never be finished with you, Julianne. So best be careful, love. You may never bathe again.” 

Epilogue

October 1843

H
e wasn’t in the mood for a proper English miss.

Not that those words precisely described the red-haired infant Julianne delivered into Patrick’s arms that full-moon October night.

Their new daughter’s entrance into the world was timed, of course, for maximum effect. The baby was a good two weeks earlier than predicted—the better, Patrick supposed, to surprise them all. And more to the point, she arrived a mere five hours after announcing her intentions, with the onset of labor during the second course of dinner.

Once the first blush of panic had worn off and Patrick realized his wife was not inclined to take a leisurely, rational approach to childbirth, he had elbowed the housekeeper aside, rolled up his sleeves, and proceeded with the decidedly un-earl-like behavior of delivering his firstborn.

Patrick held the slippery bundle in his hands and stared down into his new daughter’s scrunched-up face, thinking her quite possibly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He wiped her tiny nostrils clean with the soft cloth the housekeeper handed him, willing his daughter to breathe. She did so with a short, soft gasp, inhaling her first taste of life.

And then the new Lady Sarah Jane Channing let loose a high, warbling wail that reminded Patrick very much of the child’s mother.

He reluctantly turned her over to the housekeeper. While his medical skills had rendered him perfectly capable of delivering his daughter, the scrubbing and swaddling part of the experience was admittedly beyond his scope of experience. When baby Sarah was finally presentable in a manner befitting the offspring of a peer of the realm, Patrick carried her back to Julianne. He stood beside them, humbled to silence by the experience of seeing his daughter’s cries subside as she nestled tight into the crook of his wife’s arm.

He wondered, for a breathless moment, how his normally squeamish wife would react to the sight of a newly born human, which admittedly lacked the innate softness he knew the baby would later acquire. But Julianne looked down on her daughter with as much awe as Patrick felt himself, and he felt something slip in the vicinity of his heart.

“You amaze me, wife.”

She looked up. “I do?”

“Aye.” He had memorized every feature, and every nuanced emotion of his wife’s beautiful face, and damned if there wasn’t something missing. “I don’t know a single other woman who could come through childbirth with her freckles still carefully hidden from view.”

“A lady does not like to be reminded of her flaws,” Julianne said, her voice ringing with amusement and weary happiness. “I confess, this little one took me by surprise. ’Tis unnerving to find yourself at the whim of another person, even one so sweet and little.”

Patrick chuckled. “At last you know how I feel, almost every day.”

His wife’s eyes flashed like green ocean glass, tumbling in water. “Then you are now saddled with two unpredictable females. Whatever deity did you insult to be so blessed?”

“Never let it be said I do not count myself fortunate in that regard. You’ve a way of making me look forward to the unknown. And while baby Sarah took us all by surprise, it is better for you, certainly. The faster and earlier the delivery, the less difficulty you were likely to encounter.” He cleared his throat. “Er . . . at least . . . that is the way of it with horses.”

That made her laugh again, which made the baby stir in annoyance. “Well,” Julianne said, smiling over their daughter’s head, “I am glad to see your medical skills and good humor have not rusted during the months of disuse, at any rate.”

“Oh, I’ve found plenty by way of diversion about Summersby to keep those old skills sharp,” he assured her. Indeed, he’d found a heady mix of responsibility awaited him as the new Earl of Haversham, a unique concoction of affairs that involved as much or as little veterinary knowledge as he wished to apply to the business of managing—and improving—his estate.

And with every night spent in Julianne’s arms, his good humor was by now firmly established.

“Can you fetch my spectacles?” she asked, nodding to the bedside table. “I want to inspect her thoroughly.”

Patrick picked up the delicate wire rims. He settled them doubtfully on her nose. “You only need these to see at a distance. Why do you want them now?”

“I don’t want to take any chances on missing anything about her,” she said, squinting down through the lens at her daughter. After a short moment, she sighed and pulled them off. “You are correct, as you almost always are. I can see her far better without them.”

Patrick grinned. “Until she gains her legs. Then I suspect you shall find yourself relying on them more than you want.” He leaned down to kiss the tip of his wife’s nose, and the love he felt for her almost dragged him under with the force of it. “Does our little Sarah fit your mother’s name, as you had hoped she would?” he asked.

Julianne smoothed a gentle head over her daughter’s still-damp hair. “That she does. My mother would have been so pleased. But . . . are you disappointed I have not delivered you an heir? I know you had hoped for a son we could name after Eric.”

Patrick shook his head, as sure of this as anything in his life. “No, love. I am not disappointed in the slightest. She is absolutely perfect. I can already see her chasing Gemmy and Constance, and twisting her grandmother ’round her little finger. She’s bound to lay waste to hearts from here to Scotland in about twenty years.”

Indeed, Patrick had a feeling the little waif was bound for trouble. After all, she had a head full of red hair and her mother’s demonstrably healthy lungs. And she might be tiny, but she’d already disappointed many a fortune-seeking bounder. Half of London had been waiting breathlessly for her appearance, the gaming books heavy with wagers on when she would arrive, most erring on the side of expediency over caution.

“We certainly showed the cynics, didn’t we?” Julianne lifted a brow, dragging his heart along with it.

And well they had. It was a good twelve months after the date scrawled on the blacksmith’s register in Moraig, and ten from when they had repeated those vows at the parish church, ensuring no one could ever challenge the validity of their union. No one could claim any longer that their marriage had been made in the worst sort of haste, or orchestrated to cover an imprudent night of passion.

“Yes, love. We’ve shown them all. You no longer have to chafe against the whispers.”

“Idiotic gossip. The fools making such wagers deserve to be parted with their money. You shall never, ever put stock in such things, will you?” Julianne crooned down at her daughter. “You shall be brave, and bold, and true to yourself. And above all, you shall marry for love.”

Patrick smiled. Because in truth, he knew that as time went by, they would quiet the gossip with more than just baby Sarah’s timing. Anyone who saw him with Julianne could not fail to see the rare affection between them. They had more than just the appearance of a love match. They had one in actuality.

And that was a rumor he was all too willing to prove.